Perry: I'm the 'only outsider'

Rick Perry made an 11th-hour plea to Iowa voters Monday, insisting he is the “only outsider” in the Republican field while dismissing the other candidates.

“We do stand out. We’re the only outsider — you got 63 years of collective congressional time in four of the candidates and then you’ve got a Wall Street insider,” Perry said on NBC’s “Today” show one day before Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, billing himself as the only candidate who can represent voters who want to clean up Washington.

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The Texas governor more specifically focused his criticism on Rick Santorum, blasting the former congressman’s congressional record.

“You’ve got Rick Santorum, who’s talked about being a fiscal conservative but voted eight times to raise the debt ceiling,” Perry said. “He’s raised it more than Obama has. He’s a serial earmarker and matter of fact, stood up as late as yesterday and said he was proud of all of the earmarks. That’s the problem in Washington.”

Perry, who came in at fifth place in the latest Des Moines Register poll, also responded to Santorum’s jab at his vow to get rid of federal agencies.

“He’s part of the problem because you’ve got a culture there — a person who has been in Washington, D.C. so long, who doesn’t understand what the American people want,” he said. “Why do we have a Department of Education? Does Rick Santorum want Washington to tell the people of Iowa how to educate their children? I don’t think so.”

In a later interview on MSNBC on Monday, Perry suggested that the other conservative hopefuls didn’t have enough fuel to go the distance.

”I’m the only one of the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives that are running that actually has the ability to raise the money, to have the organization, to run through and finish the primary process. Santorum and Bachmann don’t,” he said. “At the end of the day, we have the national organization and the fundraising capability to run through this thing. Plus, we’re the outsiders. They’re all Washington insiders.”